Thursday, October 04, 2012

IN MARCH, ONE DAY BEFORE THE RELEASE of the iPad 3, iFixit cofounder Luke Soules traveled 17 hours from San Luis Obispo, California, to Melbourne, Australia, so that he could be the first person in the world—literally—to purchase one. Then, wielding a heat gun, some high-powered suction cups, eight guitar picks, a Phillips screwdriver, and a flat-headed tool called a spudger, he proceeded to gut the thing part by part, tweeting out photos as he did.

The stunt was catnip for a technology press eager for an angle on the latest launch and for gadget geeks hot to glimpse live nude photos of the iPad's massive battery and dual-core A5X processor. But the teardown, one in a series, had a more subversive purpose. "We've figured out how to hijack the news cycle to change the dialogue to be more about long-term thinking and repair," explains Kyle Wiens, who founded iFixit with Soules while both were students at California Polytechnic State University.